Clydefield Infants

Nordhoff Cemetery is small and rectangular

A gentle sloping patch of land that is bordered on one side with oaks

And on the other by Del Norte Road

A stone wall stands uninterrupted except for a gate that is propped open

Ready for visitors or new residents

The markers are varied – some simple wooden crosses

Others granite and marble obelisks

It is a decidedly unemotional cemetery

Very few epitaphs, mostly simple names and dates or references to military service

It is gusty today

And I have never been here before

Just a place to pass a lazy half hour with the children

Before the schedule pulls us back in line

It rained hard yesterday and the ground is muddy

A mossy sponge littered with leaves and strewn sticks

An occasional bud blown clean off a plastic flower

The kids scatter and chase the gravestones

The first leading to the next and so on

Until I’m stumbling in my high-heeled boots trying to keep up with them

And answer Who died here? And How old was this guy? or

Look, Mom, her name was Elizabeth, too!

I sigh and gaze to the left

Teo stamps his feet at the foot of Robert Jr’s resting spot

While Lucca wonders aloud whether or not Edie was his wife or daughter

I lean over to drop my purse because it has grown so heavy

And trip over the tiniest marker

A plain wooden placard whose words were etched as if in a harried moment

Perhaps with a butter knife because no other funds were available

Clydefield Infants is all it says